package editdistance;

/**
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with this
 * work for additional information regarding copyright ownership. The ASF
 * licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
 * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 Unless required by applicable law
 * or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is
 * distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
 * KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language
 * governing permissions and limitations under the License.
 */

/**
 * Interface for string distances.
 */
public interface StringDistance
{

    /**
     * Returns a float between 0 and 1 based on how similar the specified
     * strings are to one another. Returning a value of 0 means the specified
     * strings are identical and 1 means the string are maximally different.
     * 
     * @param s1
     *            The first string.
     * @param s2
     *            The second string.
     * @return a float between 0 and 1 based on how similar the specified
     *         strings are to one another.
     */
    public float getDistance(String s1, String s2);

}
